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This is a blog about something very trivial - paper. We handle paper on a daily basis, we wipe our butts with it, we might read a newspaper, we get some spreadsheets printed out and we hand in a school assignment, everyone uses paper. But why?
I ask this because it is one annoying limitation with paper - it is a physical object. If you want to send a piece of paper to someone you have to first pay for it(trivial sum but still) and then wait several days for them to recieve it. Not to mention that certain pieces of paper requires photo copying, scanning, special printing etc to fill someones standard for something.
I bring this up because i find it to be weird how institutions, government and universitys still cling on to the notion of paper. All this because i have a few outstanding things that has to do with a piece of paper that i cant seem to fit into my busy last week of exams schedule(it pretty much boils down to me not having a printer).
1. I have a sum of money to collect from a deposit in a appartment organisation in my previous homeland - Sweden. To do this they require a photocopy of my ID, despite the fact that: I've been paying the bills from the same account i want them to deposit the money into, i offered to take my own photo off my ID and email it, the account is registered under my name as per the information they have. But no, all they accept is a photocopy of my ID on a piece of paper.
2. Academia. I recently did an exam for a class called "Net Journalism". How did i have to deliver? On paper. For a class designed to teach us how to write for the web. Despite the fact that the university has an online portal to deliver assignments, we still had to go through the hazzle of printing out a piece of paper and physicly show up to deliver it(in my case i had to send it in the mail). There's more examples of this, a class based on making webpages i had to deliver the exam again by paper form. Just seems so extremelly old fashioned.
3. My student loan. Yet again only accepts my assurance that i go to a certain school on a piece of paper. Photo no go, digital signing no go. If i login to my personal page on the student loan organisations page, and click a box and type out my name stating that i solemly swear im not ripping them off - its just as legal as if i do it on a piece of paper.
--edit--
Another example: we had a PHP exam our first year, we had to write code on a piece of paper with a pencil. I cannot stress enough how annoying that was and how awfull it automaticlly made the code look. Not to mention that it takes about 3x longer to write it on a paper with a pencil then to type it on a PC. It's just inefficient and downright stupid.
Pretty much every exam being written would benefit from the use of a PC since it is way easier to edit and structure a big lump of text for obvious reasons.(This is again in reference to exams on site, writing with pen and paper) The obvious cheating can easilly be blocked by a simple program that blocks anything but notepad or MS word or whatever and is then unlocked by a code given by the proffessor when you hand your exam in.
All this despite that there are ways to get an online sort of identification card(which i have - but nobody but banks accept)
So whats up with the obsession with paper in "Official" matters? Aren't we supposed to move on into the digital age?
  
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digital is of course better in every practical way, old time ways of doing things are just being clung to because they don't want to be changed.
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Probably a lot of red tape involved in accepting digital copies of things, except for your net journalism paper, in which case it might be so your teacher can mark it up easily and it's easier for each student to print one copy than for the teacher to print [number of students] copies.
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On May 16 2012 22:15 Lousy! wrote:
Probably a lot of red tape involved in accepting digital copies of things, except for your net journalism paper, in which case it might be so your teacher can mark it up easily and it's easier for each student to print one copy than for the teacher to print [number of students] copies.
Well in the case of a photocopy of an ID for instance, what is the difference in taking a picture and emailing it or taking a photocopy of it and sending it in the mail the normal way? The main difference is the mail will take days, the email will take minutes. Its not a big deal ofcourse, just this little thing that has annoyed me the last few years.
Another example: we had a PHP exam our first year, we had to write code on a piece of paper with a pencil. I cannot stress enough how annoying that was and how awfull it automaticlly made the code look. Not to mention that it takes about 3x longer to write it on a paper with a pencil then to type it on a PC. It's just inefficient and downright stupid.
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I generally agree that digital is better but there is one exception: mathemathic symbols. It's much easier to write down most advanced stuff using a pen simply because you need to use special software to make it look like on paper. But I never understood why would somebody make me write down some C code -.-
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Paper is physical. It takes up space (albeit not much), which makes it harder to ignore. If you are sent an email sometimes they are buried with new messages every day - unless you have the time to respond to every email immediately. Some people find it easier to organise physical documents and it definitely is easier to mark paper assignments/reports. As Lousy! mentioned it also puts more work onto the people processing everything if they are required to print out your documents.
But I do agree with your overall thesis in that it would be great if people were more accepting of digital copies.
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On May 16 2012 22:05 lloydp wrote:
digital is of course better in every practical way, old time ways of doing things are just being clung to because they don't want to be changed.
mayyyybe.
I disagree actually. I think the so called 'paper trail' is still very important to modern organizations or government's actions. For whatever reason society holds the weight of a pen drawn signature above an electronically written one.
Sure, you can forge anything nowadays in print or online if you really have the necessary skills.
That being said, paper is a way of mitigating potential for impersonation or identity theft for instance as when you go to the bank to take out a loan you have to sit and fill out stacks of signatures on contracts and your identity can be checked at multiple points.
I dunno, it's finals week and my brain is pretty scrambled. I know that this was a shitty post, but I hope my meaning sort of got across.
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On May 16 2012 22:19 unkkz wrote:
Well in the case of a photocopy of an ID for instance, what is the difference in taking a picture and emailing it or taking a photocopy of it and sending it in the mail the normal way? The main difference is the mail will take days, the email will take minutes. Its not a big deal ofcourse, just this little thing that has annoyed me the last few years.
Another example: we had a PHP exam our first year, we had to write code on a piece of paper with a pencil. I cannot stress enough how annoying that was and how awfull it automaticlly made the code look. Not to mention that it takes about 3x longer to write it on a paper with a pencil then to type it on a PC. It's just inefficient and downright stupid.
1. The difference is that things are already done with the paper copy, and there's a lot of red tape to get through before things can be done differently. Maybe they have a neat folder of everything and they need a paper copy, maybe photocopies are generally more reliable (photos have a higher chance to turn out poorly) and they don't want to have to ask you for it several times, etc.
2. Programming tests are done with pencil and paper because it's too hard to make sure you're not cheating when you're on a computer, probably.
Edited to fix quote.
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I still and will forever do my banking the old fashioned way. Everyone's trying to get me to use the online way, but I just don't trust it. Plus it's kinda nice to go to the bank and talk to someone :\
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10810 Posts
Most important stuff needs to be backed up with paper anyway. Fire hazards are less common than harddrive malfunctions ;p and also much more preventable.
With handing in assignments, there's too many dumb students who will try sending in documents in strange formats to buy more time and it is just a pain for a teacher to deal with. Sometimes it is ok when they've got a system and you do the whole thing online so they can't possibly get a purposely corrupted file, and it's also ok if you've got a small group of highly educated students who aren't likely to pull such silliness, but in any big class it is not worth it.
I usually feel more comfortable handing in a hard copy anyway, just because I don't know what word processor my prof is using, if my email will get buried under a million others etc. Sure my paper could get lost, but at least the person I handed it to will have seen my face and me giving them the paper.
Digital is great for all low-importance documents and fun, but it has no guarentees of permenance unless you want to back up everything multiple times and hope technology doesn't move swiftly enough to make whatever program you used obsolete. Yeah....
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I find it much easier to read critically things on paper vs things online. Marking/editing always seems easier to me, also you can write comments/criticisms in the columns.
For a school report (#2) I can't imagine an instance where I'd be upset/shocked for being asked for my assignments on paper, though I wouldn't assume they would all need to be.
It's always good imo to have a hard copy, anyone who spends time on TL knows the possible follies of computers, and if a copy is required, it's nice to be able to access the hard copy easily, with no problems.
Heh, since when did I become a nostalgia fag? I hate that everything is done digitally, I like the reliability of hard copies on paper over having something digitally, even if it takes longer to distribute/hand in/etc.
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Paper is clearly the best.
Books have been kept in condition for 100s of years. But with technology on a computer what can we expect of file formats to exist in a decade ? Paper is a physical object and the context is a language of words, on a computer the word document is a string of binary and without context this means nothing. I think that with current technological advances in the recent years businesses/organisations are scared of being put in a dark age when file formats cannot be opened anymore and it will cost alot of money and time if you would be able to transfer these to new files etc. If you think about how much data companys store and how much money it would cost to transfer these into different formats.
My 2 cents, go easy on me :D
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As a security guard where lots of things are getting switched over to computers, I have to say digital isn't always best. We have to go on patrol with a clipboard and notepad anyways to write down all the information (temperatures, names, badges, blah blah) and then spend over 1 hours per shift typing it on the computer. Huge waste of time for the sake of trying to be modern. Sometimes paper is better. And our computer recently crashed also and we lost everything. However, we still have written reports from 10 years ago....
I miss the old days of just bringing around my clipboard and writing my SAR (shift activity report) on paper 1 time and being done with it.
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On May 16 2012 21:23 unkkz wrote:
2. Academia. I recently did an exam for a class called "Net Journalism". How did i have to deliver? On paper. For a class designed to teach us how to write for the web. Despite the fact that the university has an online portal to deliver assignments, we still had to go through the hazzle of printing out a piece of paper and physicly show up to deliver it(in my case i had to send it in the mail). There's more examples of this, a class based on making webpages i had to deliver the exam again by paper form. Just seems so extremelly old fashioned.
It's a pain in the ass for your teacher to have to print out every paper they read. Unless your professor prefers to grade on the computer (the mind boggles) this is reasonable.
Because college is so thoroughly commoditized these days, students kind of feel that the professor works for them and get all entitled. The academy isn't really supposed to work that way.
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On May 17 2012 03:51 FullNatural wrote:
As a security guard where lots of things are getting switched over to computers, I have to say digital isn't always best. We have to go on patrol with a clipboard and notepad anyways to write down all the information (temperatures, names, badges, blah blah) and then spend over 1 hours per shift typing it on the computer. Huge waste of time for the sake of trying to be modern. Sometimes paper is better. And our computer recently crashed also and we lost everything. However, we still have written reports from 10 years ago....
I miss the old days of just bringing around my clipboard and writing my SAR (shift activity report) on paper 1 time and being done with it.
I made a shift report for some people. I have an automatic backup every months and the reports are emailed to all the users. The backups are stored on a server from the same service provider as the database though :/ And I rarely remember to put them on my computer. The point of the daily emails is to let everyone know what went on the previous day.
Entry into a digital system is difficult. I'd rather not do that until everyone had an electronic device that could make checks.
I like writing essays on paper before on a computer and I like editing on paper too.
I think it's possible to spoof digital things and trick people.
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On May 17 2012 04:05 sam!zdat wrote:
It's a pain in the ass for your teacher to have to print out every paper they read. Unless your professor prefers to grade on the computer (the mind boggles) this is reasonable.
True. I teach at a large state university, and my policy is that if the only way you can get an assignment in on time is via email, go ahead and email it to me, but don't expect to ever see any feedback. I will open the attachment, read it, write down a grade, and delete it.
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Because hard copy is something that was given to u and historical evidence. Sure it can be recorded on the computer but it was physically put on paper. I like to have bank statements and such on hard paper but because of this whole econess I'm being charged 2 bucks a month for a paper statement.
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I agree that things will (and should) become gradually more digital and whatnot, but having a tangible, physical medium is not something that can be replaced in certain matters.
Here's a thought: in few hundred years, some random data stored in my computer will likely be obliterated from this world; if by some fortune that's not the case, then data will likely not be retrievable due to the technology not being backwards compatible. But some physical documents might remain intact as an artifact that can be read. In other words, it can never be outdated, unlike technology.
I realize the argument can also go the other way (digital data can last forever while physical things can decompose), but it does not discredit my thesis that certain things can never be replaced with digital data, regardless of progression of technology.
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